With strong ties to Triton College, Jay Reyes was recently appointed to fill a vacancy on the college’s board of trustees.
On Aug. 4, at a Triton College special board meeting, Reyes, 41, was sworn in to fill the seat vacated by Vanessa Moritz, who resigned from the seat in June citing personal reasons. Reyes previously served on the board for a year in 2010.
He says as a board member he wants to try and give back what the college has given him.
“I think that Triton is great and if I can add something to it, I’m glad to do it,” he said. “If I can go in there and continue to make sure things go well for the students, then I’ve done a good job.”
Reyes, an attorney and deputy general counsel for the Division of Real Estate with Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation, attended Triton College from 1992 to 1994. He was president of the Triton College Student Association in 1994 and that same year transferred to University of Illinois at Springfield, where he received his bachelor’s degree in political science. He received his law degree in 2004 from John Marshall Law School.
Reyes previously worked at Triton College while attending law school as a college relations associate, charged with the task of recruiting and providing guidance to new students. He wants to continue to do that as a board member.
“We’ve got to get enrollment up,” he said. “We can start off with various groups that are already underserved like minority or ethnic groups.”
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He is willing to be the face of that initiative. He said if there was any other time to get these and other potential students involved in the school, now is the time. He highlighted the infrastructure improvements the college is making.
“Bar none it [Triton College] can go toe to toe with any other institution,” he said.
Reyes, who lives in Riverside, will be on the board for the remaining two years of Moritz’s term. He says he doesn’t know what he’ll do after that — he would have to run for election to retain his seat on the board.
“Right now I’ll do the best I can and when the time comes, I’ll figure it out then,” he said.
Twitter: @DavidDPollard